“Just like that.”
“We start with a good night’s sleep, and another productive practice tomorrow,” Alan said. “Then we keep doing that, day after day, until the Trials.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 27
EVAN
That night,being the one able to ease Perry’s fears over why I was with him, and what I thought our relationship was worth, had left me feeling confident in ways I hadn’t in a long time. My life was on track. We had all the time in the world to get ready for Trials.
We had time.
However, the day I stood in the arena on the centre sheet of five, with actual stands full of people, I wondered how the weeks leading up to it had passed so fast.
I wasn’t ready.
Perry and Alan stood on either side of me, all of us in our matching black shirts, them looking so calm. I wanted to crawl out of my skin and into them and hide there. Who knew I’d be the one to freak out at the last minute, and not Perry, when confronted by all those people.
Not that this was the first time we’d been at a tournament with a crowd, but this was easily three or four times the number of people we’d ever had before.
Fair. It was a big deal, deciding who was going to represent our country on the world stage. People wanted to be there to see it.
Some of those people were there for us. Shaw and Darby and their new team were there. Michael’s folks, even my brother, Emileigh, and their kids had made the trip to watch us.
Miraculously, I found his face in all those people, and he was grinning, ear to ear, and looking so proud.
“Oh shit,” I whispered. “I think I need to hurl.”
The words were barely out of my mouth and both my guys grabbed a hand and squeezed. “Take a breath,” Alan suggested.
“We got you, babe,” Perry assured me.
I expected them to let go, then, since the announcer had begun to introduce our team, but they didn’t. There, on national television, in front of a couple thousand people in the stands, they both stood there, holding my hands, fingers laced, like this was a normal thing to do.
I had noticed a couple of other teams with couples holding hands. On one, the husband was a player and his wife was their trainer, and on a team from B.C., there was another gay couple. But the three of us? That was going to raise a few eyebrows. And questions.
Especially once people did the math and wanted to know the timing of the twins getting fired, and Perry and I joining Alan’s team.
“You don’t have to answer any questions, ever,” Alan said, because he was getting scary good at reading my mind. “If they ask me why I fired the twins, I’ll tell them the truth. If they ask why I chose you, Perry, and Robbie to replace them, I’ll tell them the truth.”
“And if they ask about this?” I asked, slightly raising our joined hands.
“I’ll tell them to go ask some other Skip who he’s sleeping with.”
Perry grinned. “I like that answer. I’m using it.”
The introductions were interesting. As each of our names were called, we stepped forward, but some variation of our hands held remained.
“Might as well have everyone be on the same page from day one, right?” Alan said. He jerked his chin across the sheets to the team on sheet one, where Jason and Cameron Darren stood, representing a curling club from Pickering. “The less ammunition we give them, the better.”
He had a point. And by that time, the rest of our guys had been introduced and the announcer had moved on to the team from B.C. that we would play first.
That game, and the rest of the week of round robin games, flew by in a blur. We only lost one game to the team from southern Ontario who had picked up the twins. Because of course.
“There’s a good chance we play them in the finals,” Alan warned after that loss.
We were in our hotel suite, demoralized, angry, and feeling like shit when he set a tray of plastic shot glasses on the table in front of where Perry, Carol, and I were sitting on the couch. Each glass brimmed with a pale, amber liquid. He went to the door to the adjoining room and knocked. “Robbie, Mikko, come out here, please.”
